How We Aim to Reduce Our Carbon Footprint

The Green Team

Our headquarters already have several initiatives benefitting the climate. From striving to be paperless to reducing our plastic use, solar panels on our roof to recycling hubs, or electric vehicles and the corresponding charger points, we’re proud of our achievements so far.

But we want to bring more by reducing even further.

And internal memos are out for recruitment for our team responsible for furthering our sustainability goals. So, what will they do?

They’ll regularly meet to discuss social, community, economic and environmental ideas and how we can grow by reducing our footprint. With specific groups below targeting certain areas:

• Green HQ: we will look how we can be greener in Rayburn House.
• Community Action: here, we’ll involve ourselves within the local community via fundraising and volunteering.
• Supplier Partnerships: We’ll see how we can work with suppliers to be more sustainable.
• Working with Groups: in partnership with us, one of our family will talk to party leaders on how they can make their tour more sustainable.

To Engage and Become Travelife Certified

Travellife is an ABTA and ANVR endorsed certification that can educate us further in sustainability.

And learning each day is important in our sustainable strategy. Travelife offer vast potential with HQ emissions assessment, environmental training, access to their management system (which allows us to see where we can improve) and connection with similar organisations striving towards a sustainable future.

Providing Carbon Labelled Tours

(This image is purely conceptual and our Carbon Neutral Tour implementation may look very different when released!)

We’re hugely excited about the prospect of this but understand it’s ambitious to label every tour with the consumption, emissions and carbon usage.

However, we’re still pushing for labelled itineraries and quotes to give you a more thorough understanding of emissions from one of our tours. With that said, our first aim is to cover all transport and accommodation emissions.

Certified Carbon-Balanced HQ

Our solar panels are one aspect of our energy generation and efficiency policies to reduce, or balance, our headquarters’ emissions.

But, we understand it’s challenging to completely reduce our non-sustainable consumption. So, we’ll be working with the organisation C-Level to balance our emissions we’re unable to reduce on our own.

Collaborating with C-Level

For companies who are unable to reduce their carbon footprint on their own, or who need direction, C-Level provide an answer.

The initiative promises collaboration between C-Level and us to offset our emissions, or as they put it: become carbon-balanced. They’ll consult and gives us the tools to work out unavoidable based emissions and how we can balance them.

And in those areas where reduction isn’t possible, we can carbon-balance our output by sponsoring global projects with C-Level. They aim to provide resources to local communities so conservation, protection, and ultimate continued life cycle of our natural resources is defended.

Projects include the award-winning mangrove conservation and village development on the south coasts of Kenya, called the Mikoko Pamoja Blue Forests; the protection of 8 Natural Protected areas in Mexico; and CommuniTree in Nicaragua sees small-scale farming families re-create indigenous forest in the largest reforestation programme in the country.

These are just a few of the projects creating a positive global impact. You can find them all here on C-Level’s website.

Offering a Carbon Offsetting Solution

For unavoidable emissions or those we can’t reduce, we want to provide the option of carbon-balanced tour via offsetting.

Which is why, one of our future aims is to include a carbon calculator on our site where you can fully visualise your school trip emissions. With that, you can choose either to balance your emissions independently, or we can include the small cost to offset in your tour.

Coming Together with Local and International Communities

As a family-run business for over 55 years, we’re incredibly proud of our standing within the many communities of Derby. Equally, as a tour operator for almost six decades, we’ve built a trusted relationship with communities on the international scene.

Internationally, we work with local hotels and restaurants to provide the local economy with sustainable income, repeat business and provide an improved economic and social infrastructure. Plus, feeding the local economy helps conserve fuel, cuts fuel costs, reduces traffic congestion and lessens air as well as water pollution.

Make It Easier to See Our Greener Tours

This mammoth undertaking involves compartmentalising every part of your tour to emphasise the environmental aspects.

It’s tough, but our goal is to showcase each tour with an emphasis on the green elements. So, parts such as sustainable suppliers, local restaurants, hotels as well as excursions, which allow you to pick greener options and contribute directly to your decreased carbon footprint.

Long-Term Climate Goals

We know we’re aiming but we feel big aspirations will drive our carbon footprint reduction even further.

Providing quality and memorable school tours is the essence of us as a business, and carbon emitting transport and resource consumption are an integral part to realise them. But, with our long-term climate goals, this is how we aim to reduce our carbon footprint.

If you have any queries, please call or email us.